Game Changer

Getting home from work this evening I noticed that the sun is not far from sinking by the time I get there.  Soon it'll be dark by the time I walk in the gate.  No afterwork skating for a few months now.  Sigh.

Maybe to make up for it, maybe because I had the house to myself, I watched two recorded games of NHL ice hockey.  The first, a late season game featuring the Minnesota Wild defeating the St Louis Blues (both these teams in the present playoff round).  Admire the courage of Curry, the Wild's goal tender in only his fifth game in years, as he fronted sixty good shots at goal (over forty being 'on' goal) and several milling pileups of bodies, skates and flashing sticks.  Then it was the first game of the round 1 Rangers v Flyers series (Rangers win 4-2) where the New York home crowd sounded one of the most engaging I've heard all season.

Finally, sated, I listen to some guy on the radio talking about 'motivation', with a fair degree of societal futurism thrown in.  And, after a while, I realise that behind his condescendingly cool intellectualism were a few kernels of wisdom.  Neat aphorisms such as 'make progress visible' (to positively generate an inward strategic motivation) and 'enjoy the ride' (with scientific proof that the 'enjoy the ride' group rode more often and achieved their 'rewards' sooner than those who rode to achieve a 'goal').  An articulation, indeed, of the 'meta' that characterises my best personal training sessions.

The trick now?  Build it into the drill (or even, into the stage of drill formation).  Example: in the sets I drilled last night, half of them involved a back hand pick up, curl with puck on inside or outside, forehand shot at goal, and thus the necessary deke from backhand to forehand (often during the turn itself).  Now, into each of these various elements can be injected additional degrees of disciple in training (eg. when deking from backhand to forehand on an inside turn, work on the deceptive qualities of puck appeariing to go one way and the body another - much as platton did in the C Grade final at Gawler (and every other game he played)). 

Increased skating versatility generally is quite noticeable, as is (to a slightly lesser degree) agility with stick'n'puck by the end of the session if a specific skill is concentrated on for a drill or three.  As I enjoy skating, it is easy for me to 'enjoy the ride'.  Separation of the concept of 'practice' from 'training' might be occasionally useful also, with perhaps 'practice' being more oriented to fun, decisions, challenges, training more towards technique, skill and movement.  In every training session should be practice/play, and in every play/practice session, training.

And through it all, training and practice in making decisions (the high level skill in any sport, especially such a fast team sport as hockey). 

But, that's be another post.

The guy on the radio, btw, was James Fox, author of 'The Game Changer'.  He was being interviewed by Tony Delroy on 'The Night Show' on ABC Radio.